After her brother Bill died, Stephanie Bemister wrote to Facebook and asked them to take down his page, which she asserted contained personal information she no longer wanted public. However Facebook refused to remove the page, citing their policy of leaving up the pages of deceased people to serve as memorials.

Shocked and upset, Bemister contacted the Consumerist blog asking for help in persuading Facebook to remove the page. The blog posted information about Bemister’s situation and Facebook immediately responded stating that they hadn’t known she was the deceased user’s sister. A Facebook spokesperson acknowledged that the company should have asked her for more information rather than immediately denying her request.

Temple News, the Temple University newspaper, reported that in some cases, a dead person’s Facebook page can be healing for friends and family members. After her daughter, who was a student at the school, died, Dawn Burke logged on to her daughter’s Facebook page for a year to read messages left by mourning friends. She said it helped her to stay close to her daughter and it was therapeutic for her son to be able to leave comments.

Many other Facebook groups were set up to memorialize those who died during the Virginia Tech shooting; for example, “A Tribute to Those Who Passed At the Virginia Tech Shooting” allows members to read messages from survivors of the event and relatives and friends of those who died, as well as express their own thoughts and feelings. The page offers links to information about the tragedy and other Web sites that offer tribute or comfort. The group currently has nearly 250,000 members.

In February 2009, Facebook added a clause to its policy that stated it had the right to “maintain user data indefinitely,” even after members closed out their accounts. Users and technology bloggers were appalled by the new terms. Facebook immediately removed the clause but founder Mark Zuckerberg said on the company’s blog that revisions are coming soon.